


Shapeless

by Tommykaine



Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 05:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13850904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tommykaine/pseuds/Tommykaine
Summary: What if the magic of the creature did more than just give her gills?Elisa muses on the changes her body undergoes after the events of the film.





	Shapeless

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the seventh week of the 8th COW-T by LandeDiFandom, using the prompt "Mare" ("Sea")

Elisa stared at the sea in silence, unable to quieten the apprehension that was slowly rising inside her.

She knew that he would come back to her, like he always did, but she still could not help but worry every time she saw him disappear into the water.

She could have gone with him. She knew he would have wanted her to.

The thing was, since he had brought her back to life, things had been different. She had started to change.

She could feel it happening, day after day. The longer she stayed in the water, the more her body adapted to it.

At first it had been subtle. Her legs had become stronger, her lithe body more muscular, and her eyes had changed to allow her to see underwater with increasing clarity.

Then it was her hands, where a thin membrane was slowly starting to spread between her fingers, and the same was true for her feet. Her nails were growing sharper and harder, her hair was starting to fall out in clumps and her skin was drying out and flaking.

She was grateful to him for saving her and happy to be able to stay by his side, to never have to say goodbye to the one she loved the most, but she still was not ready to let go of her old life.

She missed Zelda and Giles, and she missed her music, albeit he often sang to her as they were swimming, a beautiful melody that was only audible under the water.

She was worried about what would happen to her, about whether if her body changed, her mind would also change with it. She remembered how the creature had eaten Giles's cat at first, before he understood it had been an important companion for the man. No matter how intelligent her partner was, no matter how much she loved him, she knew there was and would always be something wild about him. She accepted that in him, she loved him for who he was and that was just part of it, but she was afraid of the idea of that same wild side emerging in herself.

A movement in the water interrupted her musings. She got up as quickly as she could, sprinkling sand all around as she ran towards him, smiling as she saw the small pile of shellfish and fish that he was holding in his arms.

She stopped to wait for him just at the edge of the shore, the waves only barely lapping at her feet.

She knew she was just stalling. Sooner or later, the transformation would be complete no matter how much she might have avoided lingering in the water. She already was unable to stay on land for too long without feeling faint and as if she was about to suffocate.

She knew that there would come the moment where she would have had no choice but to accept it and let it happen, but that moment had yet to come.

Her shape was still in an amorphous state, unfixed and in the making, perpetually changing.

Just like the water it was adapting to survive in.

 


End file.
